All the time that Stevenson and I were dancing the native orchestra was booming and shrieking away in the festival shed, and often we heard the old native drum-conductor cry out “O Le Sivo,” and then came a terrible crash as he struck the old army drum with a war-club!
Stevenson seemed delighted with himself for a little while, and then we got too hot and, much to the disgust of the maids, stopped. They were cool enough in their scanty attire, but we were bathed in perspiration and fairly steamed in the moonlight as we suddenly stood still.
Now I am coming to the comical part of it all, for Stevenson’s partner proceeded to make violent love to him, and the look on his face made it quite obvious that he was beginning to feel uncomfortable, for he eventually walked off and she at once followed him! He made several attempts to get rid of her by talking to a native who stood by, but still the girl persisted, till he suddenly walked up to me and said, “I say, for God’s sake get her away somewhere; dance with her, do anything to attract her attention.” I at once went to the rescue and asked her to dance. I was not much of a dancer, but as a lover I have always been passable! Stevenson seemed very grateful, but only expressed it by walking off in great haste as I clutched the girl tightly.
No sooner had Stevenson got out of sight than she started on me, threw her arms about my neck and began to say loving things about my beauty, I suppose, in her own language. Several natives were standing under the trees, shaking with laughter as they watched us: one of them touched his forehead significantly and then I realised that the girl was not quite right in the head! “I say, Hill,” I said, as I quickly turned to my comrade, “she wants you to dance with her; do take her, old fellow.” “Right you are,” he answered, for he was an obliging fellow in that way, and then I also bolted and went off, toward the chief’s Fale-Faipule (the head residence), to get my violin, which I had left in his care for safety. As I approached the bamboo door I saw Stevenson peeping through a chink! “Has she gone?” he said. “Yes, I’ve got rid of her; she is a bit wrong in the head,” I answered. Then, as Stevenson came out into the open, ready to start away home, to our astonishment the girl we were talking about ran across the grass and embraced him once more! “Well I’m d——d!” he said, and at that moment two natives came across the track and collared her. I think they were her parents; anyway they took her off, and Stevenson hurried off also, for the hour was late and the code of morals strict in the Vailima domestic establishment.
My friend and I got back to Apia soon after. I slept soundly and dreamed of dusky brides and mad lovers. So ended that wedding as far as I was concerned.
A few days after the preceding events I saw Stevenson again. It was in the daytime, and I and my friend were busy packing up cases of tinned food, which had just arrived from Sydney on the s.s. Lubeck, which generally called at Apia every month. Adjoining the stateroom—where we were assisting in packing the cases—was a grog shanty’s bar-room. The reputation that this shanty had was an evil one, for it was only visited by the beach fraternity who lived solely on rum, and by Samoan women who welcomed German sailors to their dusky arms after dark. In broad daylight it was a bona-fide beach hotel, frequented by traders who had no reputation to lose, yet who seemed the happiest of men as they told fearless tales to their rough comrades, squirted tobacco juice in endless streams through the open door and drank fiery rum.
Well, suddenly Stevenson walked into the bar, and placing a coin on the counter called for drinks. He seemed full of glee, and laughed heartily as his two companions told him something that was evidently humorous. These two men, whom Stevenson had most probably just met, and who interested him, were shellbacks of the roughest type. One was positively comical-looking with dissipation, and had a warty grog-nose; the other seldom spoke, but simply nodded his head, as an umpire of truth, when his companion told Stevenson the wonders of the South Seas. They were telling him about earlier black-birding days, when native men and girls were lured on to the schooners and carried off to slavery and worse. I cannot remember the things that they told him, but I distinctly remember Stevenson’s deep interest as he stood by them, with his head nearly touching the low roof of the shanty, and called for more rum for his companions, though he did not drink himself.
The convivial old rogues were delighted with Stevenson’s generosity, and seeing that he listened eagerly to their yarns the chief speaker became more garrulous and dramatic than ever as he lifted his hands up to the roof and said: “Sir, them things that I tells you is nothing to what I could tell you.” Meanwhile the novelist listened and looked out of the grog shanty door, to see that no one was about who would carry the news to Vailima that Robert Louis Stevenson was full of glee, treating old rogues to rum, in a grog-house of mystery and lurking crime.
There was a native woman in the bar, whom the barkeeper called Frizzy. She had a large mop of frizzly hair and I suppose got her name from that. She was one of the abandoned class, had four half-caste children and was a half-widow, for the father of the children, a German official, had gone back to Berlin.
Whilst Stevenson was listening to his newly acquired friends this woman approached him with her ghastly smile, at the same time offering for sale her little plaited baskets of red coral. Stevenson shook his head, and as she was still persistent one of the old shellbacks pushed her away as though she was a mangy dog. Stevenson looked at him with disapproval, for, though he was naturally opposed to women of her class, he was a champion for the unfortunates who had been lured to their mode of life by white men. He then called the woman, who had walked away, and asking her the price of the coral bought two baskets, though I am sure he did not want them.